Montreal

~ The Paris of North America ~

One of my very good friends was getting married in Cape Cod, Masachusetts. Natually, Jared and I decided to make a trip out of it. Before the wedding, we flew into Montreal, Canada, then drove down to Burlington, Vermont, before making our way to the coast!

Jared and I had both been to Canada before (Vancouver) but this was our first time to The Great White North together. We only had a day, hence this blog will be fairly brief. After a three and a half hour flight from Denver, we checked into our hotel (Terrasse Royale) and got a good night sleep for the jam-packed day ahead,.

Full Day

We’re in Montreal, so of course we’re getting bagels for breakfast! Yes, I also didn’t know that was a thing. The “Montreal bagel” is a distinctive variety of a handmade bagel; in contrast to the famous NY-style bagel, the Montreal bagel is supposed to be thinner, smaller, sweet and denser.

After much research, we decided to visit St. Viateur Bagel for our first meal of the day. The shop was fun because you could see all the bagels out for display and the workers making the bagels in the wood-fire oven in the back. I’m not going to lie, we didn’t get the hype. The bagel came un-toasted and was very, very chewy. Don’t think I’d recommend but glad we got it?

From there, we walked around the Parc Outremont park and surrounding neighborhood until our free walking tour at 11AM.

The walking tour, led by guidatour, met at Place d’Armes and lasted approximately 1.5 hours, and stops included the following locations:

Place d’Youville

Place Royale

Place d’Armes

Basilique Notre-Dame (outside)

Cours Le Royer

Saint-Paul Stree

Place Jacques-Cartier

Marché Bonsecours

A few fun facts about Montreal:

Montreal is an island, as well as a port city
The city’s founding in 1642 was closely linked to the founding of the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice in 1641 in Paris (hello French speakers)
It’s the second largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris! Jared tried to learn some of the language using Duolingo but we were way out of our league. (Luckily most locals were bilingual).
Montreal is build around Mont Royal, from where the city received its name. Mont Royal Park, located on the mountain, was designed by the same man (Frederick Law Olmsted) who designed New York City’s Central Park.
More than 85% of the world’s maple syrup comes from Quebec – YUM!
There’s both an “Old” and “New” Montreal city – the Old City (where most of the walking tour took place) included many historic sites and architecture; this part of the city dates back to the 17th century. The newer part of the city includes many cultural aspects related to artwork, festivals and food (Montreal has a great food scene).

Seeing some of the highlights of Old Town, we then sought out, of course, craft beer in a new city, and food items unique to that place (POUTINE!). The lunch of heroes. We continued our trek onwards in exploring the older part of the city, including a local, artisan market and fueling up on some caffeine at Café Olimpico – Vieux-Montréal.

During the walking tour, we were able to see the exterior of the Notre Dame Basilica, but didn’t go inside so we meandered our way back to the historic city center to check it out. Some fun facts about the cathedral:

It’s one of the oldest examples of gothic revival architecture in Canada
In 1982, Notre-Dame, at the time being a cathedral, was raised to the rank of minor basilica by Pope John Paul II and designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1989
The Basilica is one of the most visited monuments in North America

After that, we continued walking around various neighborhoods and trying out other delicious food. Hint hint – macaroons! We tasted a few then got some to go to savor post-dinner. For our last meal in Montreal, we ate at Lemeac, a classic French bistro. We were even daring enough to try snails! Not my cup of tea but glad we tried it. I ended up getting the duck leg confit, which I thought was pretty dry actually, but maybe my palette just isn’t refined enough?

Our final excursion of the day was making the long journey back to the hotel, and walking through the Mont Royale park and watching the sunset while eating our deliciously French macaroons for dessert.